Category: Easy and/or Fast

and my eyes more red than the devil is

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 oh, just casually eating a bowl of rubies for lunch to absorb their power, you? 

Ya girl is moving house again! 2014 was a year of four different addresses, so I’m tentatively hoping this time things are even marginally more settled, but if not, at least I’m used to it? I’m really looking forward to properly unpacking all my stuff when I slide into my new address in early February, and and am going to try sooo embarrassingly hard to make my room all dreamy and tumblr-ish (meaning fairy lights and sheer, draping fabrics. It will very likely be a tacky mess. But it’ll be my tacky mess.) I am less looking forward to trying to spatula together a bond payment from behind the couch pillows of my bank account, but hopefully it all comes together. And in what is a coup for my co-dependency (I guess I also have coup-dependency, now that I think about it) the new digs will be just around the corner from where I’m currently lodging with one of my best friends, so I can still visit all the time. And continue my mission to become best friends with their cat Ariel. We’re currently on a first name basis kind of thing, although over Christmas we did have a nap together and it was without exception the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. 
I see red, I see red, I see red 

So, I am trying very hard to not spend any money that doesn’t urgently need to be spent in anticipation of all the costs involved in moving house. I immediately bought a pomegranate after deciding this, but at least I put it to good use in this amazing salad, rather than how I usually treat spontaneous luxurious food purchases: gaze at it reverently for days, not daring to actually eat it, until it is completely withered and decayed and implodes at the slightest touch. (I also bought myself a coffee today but I admitted it so you can’t scold me now.) Anyway, my dear flatmates had made this gorgeous tomato and pomegranate salad from Ottolenghi’s newish cookbook Plenty More, and generously shared it with me. It was the kind of perfect deliciousness where you know you’re going to try recreate it at the nearest possible opportunity, and so here we are.

This combination is glorious, so juicy and sweet and surprising and sunny, with the blissful crunch of pomegranate and the soft, juicy tomato and a tiny pinprick of smoky oregano and a dressing made with lip-smackingly sour pomegranate molasses and olive oil. And it looks like you’re eating a bowl of damn rubies, I swear – so glossy and red and glowing. It’s just the prettiest. While it causes me deep sighs to have to dice up all those tomatoes, keeping everything small means you can’t tell where one ingredient starts and another ends and makes the pomegranate just as much of a star as anything else, instead of a garnish. It’s just spectacular, okay. I love being surprised by food in the same way that I love being surprised by music – you know when you hear a new song and suddenly think yes, how did this song not exist in my life and I can’t believe someone brought it to life out of thin air just when I thought all the songs that could possibly exist had already been written. Food can be like that too.

tomato and pomegranate salad

a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi, from his book Plenty More

I’ve left his recipe pretty much as is here, but like, the tomato selection at the supermarket was no fun, so I made do with some cherry tomatoes, vine tomatoes, and regular tomatoes. The dressing is so full of life that it’ll embiggen some fairly pale produce, but try to make sure at least some of the tomatoes that you’re using taste like tomatoes. Oh also I left out the red onion but whatever. 

200g red cherry tomatoes, cut into ½cm dice
200g yellow cherry tomatoes, cut into ½cm dice (or, sigh, just more normal cherry tomatoes)
200g tiger (or plum) tomatoes, cut into ½cm dice
four medium vine tomatoes, cut into ½cm dice 
one red capsicum, cut into ½ cm dice 
one small red onion, finely diced 
two cloves garlic, crushed 
half a teaspoon ground allspice (or cinnamon)
two teaspoons white wine vinegar (you could use almost any other vinegar here instead – balsamic, red wine, etc)
1 1/2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses (this stuff is sublime, but replace with lime or lemon juice if you can’t find it)
60ml olive oil, plus a little extra to drizzle at the end
the seeds from one pomegranate
one tablespoon fresh oregano leaves

salt and pepper


Mix the diced tomatoes, capsicum, and onion together in a bowl. In another bowl mix the garlic, vinegar, pomegranate molasses, allspice and olive oil and stir this into everything. Either transfer everything to a big flat plate, which is Ottolenghi’s recommendation, or leave it in the bowl, which is what I did, and then sprinkle over the pomegranate seeds and oregano. Drizzle over some more olive oil. This benefits from plenty of salt, so do some stirring and sprinkling and tasting till you’re satisfied. That’s it! 

red, the blood of angry men, tea, a drink with jam and bread (oh wait.)

This is almost ludicrously nourishing and vitamin-rich, which is a pretty cool side-effect of eating something so massively delicious and beautiful. It’s the full package. I ended up eating 90% of it just as is by the bowlful, but it’s obviously going to make anything else amazing if you serve them up together – halloumi springs to mind, but then, halloumi always does.

As well as being frugal, planning to move house, and smugly eating vegetables, ya girl is also dying her hair. This is of course something that people do all the time, since the beginning of time, but I’ve made it 28 years without a single drop of dye touching my hair and so it was kind of a big deal for me. While there were slight “what have I dooooone” vibes to start off with I’ve had a ton of fun bleaching and toning and tinting and generally wreaking havoc upon my poor mop of hair, and have ended up reaching more or less what I was aiming for, what I call Sunset Hair. (It also might look like a sunrise of the tequila kind, according to Kate, but I’m cool with that. Tequila is delicious. I do hate the Eagles song of that same name though.)

candy candy candy I can’t let you go

The colour is a little mellower than this in person. Oh, and I love it! It’s funny how as soon as you modify your appearance in some way it’s suddenly no big deal and just the appearance you have and it doesn’t seem like things have ever been any different, you know? And it’s just hair. It grows back. Mine grows at a suspiciously fast rate, so a total do-over is not implausible.

Less mellow were the weird and whiny “I’ve achieved nothingggggg” thoughts that occasionally haunt me, although I then looked at the date today and like, it’s only January 12. But still. Time to get moving on some ambitions and agendas and stuff. Not least because doing that will be an excellent way to procrastinate from packing for moving house!
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title from: Nicki Minaj, Kanye West, and Jay Z, Monster. If you haven’t heard this, please love yourself and go straight to Nicki’s verse. She kills it effortlessly, as per. I looove dancing to this song. 
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music lately: 

sometimes there is nothing you can do except curl up on your bed and listen to Lana Del Rey’s Born To Die and Taylor Swift’s All You Had To Do Was Stay a few hundred times over. (It’s really really hard to find a link to Swift’s song online, soz, however if this means you seek out the entire album then: you’re welcome)

The Ting Tings, That’s Not My Name. This song came on In The Club recently and it is just such a great song to jump up and down with friends and total strangers to.

Billie Piper, Honey To The Bee. This song is never not swoonily dreamily magnificent, okay?
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next time: Feeling kind of obsessed with pomegranate molasses right now, but only time will tell if I make elegant, nuanced recipes from it or just sit on the kitchen floor drinking it straight from the bottle before passing out. 

and my friends i’ve returned to wish you a happy christmas

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Have yourself a very little blog post: this one. It’s Christmas Eve and for the first time in my life I’m not at home, I’m in fact all alone in Wellington. Well, this is not entirely true: there is also Ariel the cat, who I’m simultaneously looking after in the absence of her owners and also trying with zero chill whatsoever to befriend. The reason I’m here and not up home is because I have work tomorrow (another first) and while it’s not ideal to not be seeing my family, it is at least interesting seeing what this completely different experience is like.

I baked some cookies over the last couple of days, mostly just so I could feel like it’s Christmas, since baking is What I Do at this time of year, and partly because I wanted something to pad out a work Secret Santa gift. These cranberry and white chocolate cookies of Nigella’s are completely serviceable items for this time of year should you feel pressed to churn out some baked goods yourself, they are sturdy and durable and last for ages, they are delicious yet comfortingly unchallenging to eat; they are very easy to make; and the uncooked dough tastes brilliant. Dried cranberries, like sour little jewels, pair magnificently with sweet, buttery white chocolate, and the red and white has a kind of christmassy holly-and-snow vibe going on which is pleasing. If you want you could add pistachio nuts to really go all out on the colour theme, but going nut-less is way cheaper.

white chocolate cranberry cookies

adapted barely from a recipe by Nigella Lawson. A lot of white chocolate chips and buttons out there taste of absolutely nothing, just a vague waxy textural sensation, so try to get something that tastes like…something. Otherwise take a bar or two of white chocolate and chop it up.

125g soft butter
half a cup sugar
half a cup brown sugar
one egg
half a cup oats
one cup flour
half a teaspoon baking powder
half a teaspoon salt
a slosh of vanilla extract
half a cup dried cranberries
half a cup white chocolate chips or buttons

Set your oven to 180 C/350 F, and line a baking tray with baking paper. 

Using a wooden spoon or similar, beat the butter and the sugars together in a large bowl till thick, creamy and light. And delicious. Beat in the egg, then fold in the remaining ingredients. Refrigerate the mixture for about 10-15 minutes. 

Take tablespoons of the cookie dough and place on the baking tray, an inch or so apart. Flatten slightly with the back of a fork and then bake for fifteen minutes, although check after ten minutes – they should be a significant, but not overly dark, golden colour. They’ll be really soft at this point but they’ll firm up on cooling, so carefully transfer them to a rack or plate of some kind and carry on cooking the rest of the dough. 

Makes 24 or so cookies, depending on the size you make and also how much cookie dough you eat. It’s really good cookie dough. 

Bonus recipe: Ginger Beer Shandy (or just Ginger Beer if you don’t like the word shandy for some reason.) Take ginger beer, take beer beer, make sure they’re both ice cold and pour half and half into a glass. Drink with utter joy! Any kind of lager or pale ale is good here, and even though I like the idea of the circularity of using ginger beer with the beer, it’s actually even nicer with dry ginger ale. This is also a Nigella recipe, from Forever Summer. Thanks, Nigella! You are the reason for the season. The season being “the concept of love and also the endlessness of time itself.” 

If tomorrow is indeed Christmas for you (well, for many it’s just another day) and you’re kicking back with like, Buck’s Fizz and a laughably enormous feast and so on, maybe think a nice thought for those in hospo and other roles who are going to work as you recline and open gifts. I’m not even going to try and front like my job is as arduous as being in an emergency ward or being a taxi driver or whatever, but like, if you’re working and not in bed then you’re working and not in bed, you know? Whatever happens when the clock ticks over to the 25th, I hope it’s a truly swell day for you, but also that every single other day that follows is also excellent (getting into the same territory here as when I used to as a child make wishes with increasingly nervous caveats, like, I wish for a thousand dollars but it can’t fall from the sky onto my head and squash me.) Basically I want things to always be nice forever, that’s not so much to ask this Christmas, huh?

Finally, in case you missed it and feel like cooking up some last-minute trouble for yourself, my previous blog post was a list of recipes I’ve written up here which would make excellent edible gifts. These cookies are now a post-script to said list.


title from: Sufjan Stevens, Sister Winter. When he’s not doing his usual material, this guy specialises in Christmas music that is aggressively plaintive and gently devastating, which is sometimes just what your ears need to hear. 

music lately:

Christmas Bells, from the original Broadway cast recording of RENT. I mean. This song is somehow ridiculous and ridiculously touching at the same time, and has to be one of the very few songs about Christmas that can claim to contain relationship exposition, drug deals, heavily layered syncopation, parodies of existing Christmas songs, and a reference to Steuben glass. It’s wondrous.

Robyn, With Every Heartbeat. This song just slays me, is all.

Taylor Swift, Out of the Woods. This is so dreamy and urgent and Roxette-ish and so perfect and I can’t stop listening.

Next time: it might be 2015, but it might not, because I am sure I won’t let one last opportunity for pre-new-year maudlin introspection pass me by! 

we live in a wheel where everyone steals but when we rise it’s like strawberry fields

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December is really dissolving like a sachet of colourfree raspberry flavoured Raro juice powder into a litre of water, huh? For some reason this year I’ve barely heard Christmas music or been exposed to any other trappings of the season. I’ve seen like, one Christmas tree. For all I know it could still be mid-September. I clearly need to find a pine tree to lean into and reverently sniff and then to play thirty two renditions of Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, y’know, basically method acting that it’s this time of year until it sinks in that it really is this time of year.

Somewhere in the middle of all this seasonal denial I made breakfast for my roomie Kate, who was being a bridesmaid, as well as for the bride herself and the rest of the bridesmaids. That same weekend I was also feeding a friend’s cat while they were away. How unlike me to be so selflessly helpful! How like me to tell everyone about my good deeds and blow them way out of proportion! I made a large jar of Strawberry Jam Granola, and then chopped up some actual strawberries and a mango and sprinkled them with sugar and put them in the fridge overnight to let the flavours sort of get to know each other better, and then there were also grilled croissants with brie which Jason made and I therefore cannot take credit for (I swiped some and they were so, so delicious.)

The recipe comes from my cookbook, and you should know that I still have copies left and it makes a really, really good Christmas present. The thought of them all being finally gone fills me with a weird kind of foggy dread, because the book itself isn’t being reprinted and so these are the only remaining copies left in the world. Just one year ago I was in a glowing bubble of joy from being freshly published. I exist in the pages of those books. Once they’re gone, that’s it. It won’t be available anywhere, to anyone. Oh wow, so I’m doing a truly appalling job of encouraging you to buy my book from me, but yeah, I unyieldingly believe that my cookbook is a brilliant read that you all deserve to own. If you do want to order one of the remaining copies from me – and my stocks are dwindling rapidly, so better hustle – then completely ignore all my existential angst and confidently email me (my email address is in the sidebar of this blog).

This granola is very, very easy and fairly adaptable – I doubled it without any difficulty and always use the cheapest jam I can find when I make this. The strawberry jam gives the oats a sticky-sweet summery flavour while making them pleasingly clumpy, and the almonds and linseeds bring their own toasty crunchiness. Add other nuts or seeds if you like, but I find almonds and strawberries to be particularly friendly together.

strawberry jam granola

a recipe by myself, from my cookbook Hungry and Frozen

  • one and a half cups whole oats
  • one and a half cups rolled oats
  • three tablespoons linseeds
  • 70g almonds
  • 50g brown sugar
  • half a cup strawberry jam

Place everything except the jam in a large saucepan and stir over a low heat till lightly toasted and warmed through. Stir in the jam and continue stirring over a low heat till it’s sticky and slightly clumpy. Allow to cool then transfer to an airtight container or jar.

The gloriously lipgloss-like scent of the strawberry jam slowly seeps into the milk, making this a highly perfect breakfast (especially with fruit and a large mound of thick Greek yoghurt) but I also like to just grab a handful from the jar at any time of day to snack upon carte blanche.

The granola itself would also make a swell Christmas present – personally all I ever want is wine, food, or money, (or something so meaningful and so deeply from the heart that it makes me cry as soon as I see it, no biggie!) so giving someone a jar of breakfast cereal doesn’t seem in the slightest bit weird to me. Put it in a cute mason jar, since they’re everywhere these days, tie a cute ribbon around it, you could even write the recipe out on a cute notecard for the person. Cute!

Once more with feeling, in case you haven’t quite absorbed what I’m trying to impart because I am far, far too wordy while trying to get my point across: if you want to buy a copy of my cookbook for a Christmas present then there’s no better time than now. Considering it’s like, not yet Christmas. It’s yours for the taking while my stocks last! Give the gift of literary perfection! (Well, so far I’m the only person who has described the book like that, but I think I’m a fairly trustworthy source.)

title from: Bush, Glycerine. I remember when I first heard this on the radio when I was maybe eight or nine and did not get it at all, pronouncing it boring and gloomy and pointless. For what it’s worth, Bush, I quickly realised I loved grungey music and that your song wasn’t that pointless after all. (Gavin Rossdale: “well thank goodness for that”)

music lately:

Sky Ferreira, I Blame Myself. This song is really, really perfect. That is all.

Belle and Sebastian, The Blues Are Still Blue. I always thought the only Belle and Sebastian song I liked was Lazy Line Painter Jane (which I could listen to over and over and over again) but yay, I found another one! This one is so simple but also zigs just when you think it’s gonna zag.

Janet Jackson, I Get Lonely. Damn, though.

next time: Gonna try and be more Christmassy! And might make a list of lots of food-present ideas and recipes.

 

suburban trees suburban speed and it smells like heaven

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look what happens when you move to the suburbs: brunch!
 
Ah, the suburbs! I say, with arms wide open like Maria Von Trapp on top of a mountain doing an impression of Scott Stapp from Creed in their song With Arms Wide Open. It has been a true rollercoaster ride of being ignored by the neighbour’s cat, taking slightly longer to walk to work, and picking fresh herbs from the garden to use as garnish. For real though, I’ve been cooking so much more than I have done in a long time, and it is good for that soul of mine. And also for inter-flatmate relations, since there’s nothing like being plied with brunch. On some recent morning (I forget which, I’ve been working day shifts as well as night shifts at work and it completely messes with my sense of what day or time it is at any given day or time) I made this for Kate and I  – a kind of improvisational thing vaguely based upon the Middle Eastern dish Shakshuka, using what I could find around me. Those things being tomatoes, a can of ‘Moroccan-style’ chickpeas, and some eggs.

Pulling it all together was some impossibly thick Zany Zeus Greek yoghurt (seriously, it has the texture of buttercream icing) mixed with sumac, dried thyme and sesame oil, with olive oil pooling on top along with torn mint leaves.

If Marmite on toast is the most adventurous you get for breakfast (and that’s cool, because oh man marmite and butter and toast together are sublime) then this might sound a little dubious, but obviously it’s going to taste amazing, so deal with it and expand your horizons. On the other hand, if you’re used to actual proper Shakshuka, this is a not-bad variation on that theme, I guess. Either way, it’s thoroughly delicious, with the softly baked eggs melting into the buttery tomatoes and spiced, grainy chickpeas. The tart yoghurt lifts up all these flavours and stops it being too, too rich, but also kind of adds to the luxuriant feel of it at the same time. If you’re only inclined to get hold of one herb then mint is what I’d recommend – its icy fresh-sweetness is perfect. But spicy basil and adorable pea shoots also help, if you happen to have some to hand like I did.

baked eggs with roasted tomatoes and chickpeas, also yoghurt with sumac and olive oil

 a recipe by myself, but it’s not overly original, serves two to three people

 four tomatoes
butter
olive oil
a pinch of ground cinnamon
a pinch of smoked paprika
about a tablespoon of brown sugar
one can of Moroccan style chickpeas, or just one can of regular chickpeas and about half a cup of tomato puree
one teaspoon ground cumin
three eggs
basil, mint, fancy pea shoots if you’ve got them

 half a cup or so thick plain Greek yoghurt
one teaspoon sumac
one teaspoon dried thyme
one teaspoon sesame oil
olive oil 
a pinch of salt
more mint

 Set your oven to 200 C/400 F. Halve the tomatoes and arrange snugly in a roasting dish. Sprinkle over a little cinnamon, smoked paprika, and the brown sugar, and put like, a teaspoon/small square of butter on each tomato half. Finally, drizzle with a little olive oil and then roast for about 20 minutes, then tip in the chickpeas and the ground cumin and return to the oven for another ten minutes. Crack the eggs one at a time into a small cup or bowl and then carefully tip them into the roasting dish (or just crack them straight in but it’s a little easier this way. Return to the oven and lower the heat to 180 C/350 F, and bake for another ten to fifteen minutes until the eggs are juuuust cooked. Remove from the oven and scatter with your herbs and then serve. Oh wait, the yoghurt: mix the yoghurt, sesame oil, thyme and sumac together. Sprinkle over some more sumac, drizzle over some olive oil – a couple of teaspoons – and sprinkle with some torn up mint. 


(this is Kate’s instagram. I kinda wanna vow that my next cookbook, when/when it happens, will *only* have instagram photos. Because look at this, seriously.) (Aside: ohhh how I want to write another cookbook.)

When I’m not cooking I’m being fed like a queen by Kate and Jason too, so it’s all pretty blissful. (Examples: apple fritters, handmade pasta with roasted butternut, cheese and tomato mousetraps, fried asparagus) I mean I’m still me, y’know, where am I going with my life, why am I so broke (likely answer: dating. It makes you broke), how do you be a human without making it look as though you’ve read a book called How To Be A Human, will I ever get another cookbook, what’s the deal with self-esteem, that kind of thing. But I’m reeeeally well fed. And making progress with the cat!

magnanimous kisses from princess Ariel

What else has been happening lately? I managed to pull together two costumes for two massively fun Halloween parties in a row this weekend, with only things found in my wardrobe (Baby Spice and Andrew WK, if you’re wondering.)

(bonus cyberspace me at a recent galactic-themed party. Everything I wear I think of as a costume, but I really love literal costumes too.)
title from: Modern Lovers, Roadrunner. I am straight up obsessed with this song and have been since the moment I heard it. I’m gonna listen to it about twelve times in a row right now. One, two, three, four, five, six!
music lately:
 
Boom Clap, Charli XCX. Just so, so sweet.
I Could’ve Been Your Girl, She and Him. Zooey Deschanel’s voice, I love it. This song, I love it.
Good Kisser, Usher. Sleek.
next time: I made this amazing Ottolenghi pistachio soup, but am not sure if the photos turned out that well…so…?

maybe if i knew french i could tell you more than i shall do

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halloumi for my roomie
 
First blog post from my new home! Despite being stridently anti-suburb my entire life, including when I grew up in a tiny rural village – I knew at the age of like, two months that I was destined to live in the city – I’ve adjusted faster than a bra strap to my new life in Newtown.
(My New Life In Newtown: the spin-off TV show from the TV show I already imagine my life to be.)
I live with my best friend Kate and her also-rad husband Jason, I am practically neighbours with another best friend, I’ve made friends with the guy who works at the corner dairy already – I actually nearly cried when he said “welcome to the neighbourhood, I hope you’re very happy here” but it had been a long day of moving house and I desperately needed an ice cream, so that may have had something to do with it. I live with Ariel the beautiful peach of a cat who I am slowly befriending, and my heart feels so full from simply having a cat around all the time. And I now have a super cool kitchen with a gas burner oven and natural light and a ton of general aesthetic cuteness going on! Yesterday I had my first go in the kitchen, by making halloumi and apple French Toast for Kate and myself.
fried cheese for my main squeeze

Microwaved Cheese and X sandwiches were a mainstay of my childhood eating (them, golden syrup sandwiches, canned spaghetti and two minute noodles) the most prominent being microwaved cheese and marmite, followed by microwaved cheese and tomato sauce (I know. But: pizza vibes!) One day after reading an American cookbook I’d got out of the library, I discovered the magical combination of cheese and apple together, and the sandwich-related part of my life was changed irrevocably. Something in the sweet, nuclear-waves-softened apple slices and the melting, nutty cheese tasted impossibly good to me, and while this isn’t surprising now – I mean, cheeseboards always come with some kind of fruit accoutrement, whether it’s fruit paste or crisp slices or just something fruity – at the time it was a pretty radical concept to my unsophisticated rural tastebuds.

So yeah, it was nostalgic thoughts of those sandwiches that inspired this brunch. Brunch is my favourite (well, breakfast eaten at a slightly later hour, basically) (that said I love breakfast any time of day, especially night) (I’m so fascinating!) and so it seemed a good way to break into the kitchen.

french toast for my mensch host (I am nothing if not committed to this bit) (and also apologetic)

 

My nostalgia was totally correct – this was completely delicious. I mean, halloumi is boundlessly astounding, and the buttery meltingness of it went quite perfectly with the soft, caramelised sweetness of the apples and the squishily fried bread. Cool hits of mint livened it up a bit and made it look better in the photos, and as well as being a pleasure to eat, it was really quite straightforward to make. I mean, I felt a bit nervous promising a lush brunch, it being my first time in this new kitchen and a recipe I’d made up on the spot, but it emphatically worked. Cheese and apple! Together at last, again.

halloumi and apple french toast

a recipe by myself/serves two

this will be easier and everything will stay hot if you make the French toast in one pan and the apple/halloumi in another, but it still worked fine all done quickly in the one pan. Up to you/your resources/ability to deal with doing more dishes. 

four thick slices from a loaf of white bread – slightly stale is good
three eggs
half a cup of milk
a pinch of ground nutmeg
four slices of halloumi
one apple
butter
mint leaves

Mix the egg, milk and nutmeg together until you can’t tell where the egg starts and the milk ends. Heat a pleasingly-sized slice of butter in a large pan until it’s sizzling, and then carefully dip the first two pieces of bread into the egg and milk, allowing both sides to soak up plenty of liquid. Transfer these to the hot pan and fry on both sides till very brown (I use a spatula/flipper thing to lift them up slightly to have a look underneath, it always takes longer to brown than you think it will. 

Finely slice the apple while the toast is cooking – you don’t have to use the whole thing but more is better. I cut off one side and then slice that into semicircles, and then carry on all round the apple till it’s all used up. In case you needed to know that.

Remove the cooked French toast to a plate and repeat with the remaining bread. You may need to add a tiny bit more milk to the egg mixture if there’s not enough – that bread is absorbent stuff. 

Fry the apple slices in more butter until softened, then scatter them over the two plates of French toast. Finally, briskly fry the halloumi slices on both sides till golden brown, put them on top of the apple-topped French toast, scatter with mint leaves, and placidly eat. 

fresh outta rhymes, to your relief
 
Other cool things about the ‘burbs: I mean, first of all for all my righteous posturing, Newtown is so close to Wellington city, the two neighbourhoods are clasping hands with fingers lovingly intertwined. Also, there are local cats.
this is moustache cat, whose detectable personality traits thus far appear to be “lurks” and “poses obligingly”
I think I’m going to be very happy living here.
Oh, and: despite having too many projects and commitments for my laughably small hands to carry, I’ve decided to start a little web series. Emphasis on little. A few years ago I tried doing some youtube videos and I never really liked them, but did them anyway, but this feels a bit more fun and chill and low-key and me? Anyway, if you like eating food in bed then you might want to watch because that’s all that really happens. Normally I’m quite upfront about telling you if I think something I’ve done is amazing, so this isn’t false self-deprecation for the sake of it, but the video is really not that great. But it’s something! And that’s something.
title from: First Aid Kit’s quietly twinkly little tune Valse. 
music lately:
 
Emily Edrosa’s self-titled EP. It’s all rumbly and moody and I love it so much and can’t stop listening.
Banks, Goddess. You shoulda crowned her, cuz she’s a goddess, you never got this. Really feeling Banks at the moment.
Mya, My Love is Like…Wo. Bedroom dance party perfection. And she TAP DANCES in the music video.
next time: omg I don’t even know but you can look forward to more photos with new interesting backgrounds and also me borrowing all of Kate and Jason’s super cool plates to put my food on!

i had fifteen people telling me to move, i got moving on my mind

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All of a sudden, this is the last blog post that I’ll be writing from my little apartment that I only just moved into. It’s a tiring thought, that I’m moving house again this Friday, but I’m also pretty chill about it. Well, relatively chill considering my usual lack of it. My tarot card for this month was all “look at the facts” and “don’t follow your feelings, follow the facts” and “hey: facts” and with that in mind it’s easy to look at this move as simply a practical thing that needs to happen and that is going to make things easier in the long run. Also, I absolutely cannot wait to live with my dear friends and their pet cat. Who will be kind of like my pet cat. I actually can’t quite comprehend that there’s going to be a cat around me all the time, it’s a dizzyingly exciting prospect for someone who has wanted nothing more than to just be in the presence of a cat regularly for sooo long. 
Also pleasing: the house I’m moving into has a lovely, lovely kitchen. I can’t wait to cook in it to take photos in it (no offense to my current apartment. We can’t all be photogenic.) 
 crispy eggplant: it’s super. 
So anyway, the last blog post from where I currently hang my hat is crispy eggplant and smoky beef tacos. I made them to impress a girl, but really the girl who I’m most concerned with impressing is myself, and luckily, I was personally way taken with these tacos. I should add, I call them tacos but it would be more accurate to call them “stuff in corn tortillas” since they’re not in the slightest bit traditionally Mexican, but yeah.
Honestly, the only bit of this recipe that I really care about imparting to you is the crispy eggplant, which I’m very proud of. It’s so crisp! So delicious! And the rest is mostly assembly. But I’ll give you the whole lot because, well, mostly because it sounds cooler and slightly more credible this way.  
crispy eggplant and smoky beef tacos

a recipe by myself. (Sorry that this recipe requires liquid smoke, which is a very specific ingredient, but it’ll still be delicious without it. Just not smoky. Surprise.) 

one large eggplant

a third of a cup of flour
quarter of a cup of cornmeal/polenta (ideally the coarse-ish stuff, not the super powdery stuff, but whatevs)
olive oil
–
200g steak, some kind of non-terrifyingly expensive cut 
one tablespoon olive oil
one teaspoon cumin seeds
a pinch of ground cinnamon
half a teaspoon liquid smoke
–
corn tortillas
50g feta (or more)
finely sliced cabbage, or green of your choice
sriracha or chilli sauce of some persuasion

Set your oven to 200 C/400 F. Drizzle some olive oil into a large baking dish, and mix the flour and cornmeal together on a plate. Dice the eggplant and toss it in the flour/cornmeal mix, so that all the cubes are finely dusted on all sides. Place the eggplant in a single layer in the baking dish, and drizzle with some more olive oil. Put it in the oven and leave it for around twenty minutes, until all the eggplant cubes are crisped and brown – it may take a little longer or a little less, depending on your oven.

Meanwhile, slice the steak into strips, and mix in a bowl with the olive oil, cumin seeds, cinnamon and liquid smoke. Fry briefly in a pan over a high heat till decently browned. Finally, either microwave the tortillas or sit them in the oven for a bit to warm through. Layer them up with cabbage, the smoky beef, the crispy eggplant, and a handful of feta, then drizzle with sriracha. Or do what you like, it’s just stuff in a tortilla, there’s no strict order to proceedings. 

The eggplant is the star here – each little square of it beautifully crispy and crunchy on the outside, blissfully melting and soft within. The beef is perfectly nice, but I’d happily have this with just the eggplant. Or in fact just a bowl of the eggplant itself. That said, the spicy, cumin-y meatiness of the steak is a delightful contrast, and feta just makes everything more fun. (Considering testing this theory by taking some feta to my next dentist appointment.) And there’s something sort of pleasing about food you can assemble according to your own sense of proportional decency, and then eat with your hands.

well, I was impressed by me. Although I’m both easily impressed and in possession of strong feelings about tacos.

As well as living with a cat (oh my gosh, living with a cat), I’ll also be significantly closer to this particular dingus. All that animal closeness and also friend closeness is most definitely going to be a worthy reward for the actually ridiculous amount of packing I still have left to do.

We both just heard Kim say “dinner!” She was saying it to Percy, my reaction was all Pavlov’s Dog. Or maybe Pavlov’s Dog’s Friend.

Oh hey guess what, I was on Radio New Zealand recently talking about a couple of recipes, it was highly fun, I love being on the radio so much. Which is weird because I tend to prefer to have an audience, but I guess just having peoples’ ears is also still gratifying. Anyway, feel free to listen to it, it’s only short! And excitingest of all, I had another Crush Cake story published on magnificent important website The Toast. It was for Lucy Liu, who is the ultimate queen of my heart, so it took forever and a ton of thought to write, but I’m proud of it.

Finally, I say this all the time, but forget ye not that if you want to get your hands on a copy of my cookbook, you can only do this by ordering it directly through me. It’s a reeeeally good time to buy a copy, since it will be one less thing for me to have to cart over to my new-house-to-be…but also it’s a good time to buy a copy because it’s a seriously wondrous cookbook. And I’m the author, so I would know.

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title from: White Stripes, Hotel Yorba. This band is really important to me and this song is delightful.
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music lately: 

Sky Ferreira, Everything Is Embarrassing. It really, really is. 

Lykke Li, I Follow Rivers. Such a perfect, moody, intense love song, I love it.

M.I.A XXXO. This song is underrated I feel, I love how it’s so oddly mournful sounding yet so upbeat at the same time, and the chorus fully reminds of The Real McCoy.
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next time: New kitchen, new house, new Laura! 

i still love you, girl from mars

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crunch time
 
Well. Gosh. I hung out with friends on Saturday night and as we watched the election results unfold we all started to feel increasingly bleak and baffled and like getting very drunk. As I said in my last post, pre-election, everyone’s politics are personal and you’re entitled to them, but it should come as no surprise whatsoever that I’m not so much “left-leaning” as “riding through your town on a sustainably farmed unicorn brandishing a rainbow flag and leaving a fearsome trail of blood from my liberal bleeding heart”. And so, the results were not what I was hoping for and voting for. But here we are, and all that can be done is that we try to support the vulnerable and the needy and the children and so on and make the best of things, yeah? Which is what we should all be doing no matter who is in power, and ultimately what I’d hope anyone in power would be aiming for in some form. Also, said friends had adopted a cat that day and other friends brought their pet corgi along to the party so there was much comforting snuggling and patting to be had.

I made this Mars Bar Cornflake Slice to bring along, thinking rightly that something sticky-sweet and deliciously immature would be ideal on such an intense night. It is adapted from a recipe in my queen Nigella Lawson’s book Feast, and you’re actually supposed to spoon the mixture into little cupcake papers. I thought I had tons of them but could only find like, seven, so panicked and threw it all into a flan dish and hoped for the best. And joyfully, it’s so damn excellent in slice form. I was worried it might be a little plain – I considered putting caramelised peanuts on it, or drizzling over melted dark chocolate – but it was stupidly perfect as is.


If you haven’t had a Mars bar in a while (and why not, when their ad insists that a Mars a day helps you work, rest AND play, all things I could use some help with) they are a layer of soft squishy chocolate nougat, with a layer of caramel sauce, all covered in chocolate. The breakfasty-comforting taste of cornflakes – slightly malty, slightly nutty – along with all that caramel and sugar is wonderful. It’s crunchy, it’s chewy, it involves melting chocolate bars with butter, and it’s so, so easy. I liked it so much that I made another trayful this morning just to have them around (and it allowed me to feel like a good flatmate and leave a note on the fridge telling everyone else to help themselves to it.)

mars bar cornflake slice

Adapted from a recipe from Nigella Lawson’s important book Feast

three 75g Mars Bars (or similar weight made up of whatever size bars you can find)
70g butter 
four cups of cornflakes
a pinch of sea salt (optional)

Break the mars bars into pieces and melt together slowly over a low heat with the butter. The nougat filling will take the longest to break down and probably won’t incorporate entirely, so don’t worry if the mixture isn’t completely smooth. Stir in the cornflakes and spatula the lot into a baking paper lined baking dish. Use the spatula to flatten it out evenly, sprinkle over a little salt if you like, then refrigerate till solid – around half an hour. Cut into thick slices with a large knife. 

You can use whatever kind of baking tray you like, but I used a round metal flan dish. I think I chose it subconsciously because I have this thing where if I’m cutting up a slice from a round dish it feels like all the rounded-edged pieces are mere offcuts and I get to eat them all. Even though I’m going to eat it all anyway? Gotta get your thrills somehow, I suppose.

 
I enjoyed being up home, trying to get the cats to bond with me, talking about knitting with nanna, making dinner for Dad and a birthday cake for Mum and generally having swell family times. Roger, pictured above, has been with the family since 2007 and my weekend at home was pretty much the first time he’s ever shown an interest in me. I am a pushover who will gladly accept this.
I have been selling heaps of my cookbooks which is exciting – let me remind you that if you want to buy a copy, going directly through me is your only chance while my stocks last. If reading my words isn’t enough for you, and how could it possibly be, you can also listen to this super cool interview I did with Harry Evans for his radio show Common Ground. We discussed libraries and halloumi and the election and the writing process and social media and I got to pick two songs to play and it was just really, really fun and lovely. You can either listen on iTunes or on Harry’s site. Yay interviews!

title from: 90s cuties Ash and their song Girl From Mars. 

music lately: 

Underworld, Rez. Listening to this song honestly makes me feel like I’m a flower petal adrift on late summer evening breeze. Literally.

Street Chant, Salad Daze. It’s so so dark and shadowy and hypnotic and good.

Charli XCX, How Can I. Sad pop sad pop, whatcha gonna do when it comes for you.

Buzzcocks, Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t). Oh, this song!
 
Next time: I was given a ton of grapefruit from someone’s tree which is pretty exciting, therefore maybe it will be something grapefruitly?

like peaches ‘n cream, she’s gonna wish on stars and touch the sky, you know what I mean

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Laura please don’t knock this off the ledge onto the walkway below Laura please don’t knock thi

It was a full moon in Pisces this week, so I don’t need to tell you that this particular horoscope stirred up some intense emotions. Luckily for me I was coolly prepared by already maintaining a lifestyle of nonstop emotional intensity! Also luckily there were lots of nice things going on, like eating a giant pretzel Momofuku cake for my girl Kate’s birthday, dressing up as Columbia for a special screening of Rocky Horror at work, more pats with Percy the corgi, and discovering and then watching the entirety of in one evening, the truly heart-wrenchingly delightful TV show Faking It. It was also the excellent Tim’s birthday, and I made him this peach balsamic barbecue sauce as a present. I had a half tin of peaches in the fridge and many spices and condiments in the pantry and a budget that stretched to one small red onion. This recipe that I found appealed to me because of all these reasons, but also there’s something oddly pleasing about making your own preserves and sauces and such, and I thought the peachiness might add a sweet, summery Americana vibe to something already so very American. (Also…I had half a can of peaches in the fridge.)

Apologies for including a fiddly specialty ingredient like liquid smoke, but it’s not that hard to get hold of a bottle of it in fancy food shops or online, and if you like things to taste smokey then you can either find some or sigh perpetually about how nothing tastes smokey. (That’s as much tough love as I can possibly muster: buy this thing if you like, but only maybe, and either way I’m sorry.) If you can’t find it you’ll still have a deliciously peachy sweet-sour sauce, but as soon as the liquid smoke is stirred in it suddenly becomes like sunshine on your shoulders and protein seared on magma-hot metal (said protein could be tofu, I’m easy) and your hair being scented like woodchips for days and being ravenous and everything taking so, so long to be cooked through so you have to drink a lot of beer while you wait. So like, you might want to get some.

peach balsamic barbecue sauce

adapted from this recipe on damndelicious.net, makes around 250ml

  • one tablespoon olive oil
  • one red onion, diced
  • one tablespoon chilli sauce (or to taste, I used sriracha which is kinda mild, hence a tablespoon)
  • one teaspoon cumin seeds
  • two large ripe peaches, diced, or the equivalent of canned peaches
  • two tablespoons maple syrup (or golden syrup or honey – maple is smokier though)
  • 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
  • one tablespoon dijon mustard
  • one tablespoon tomato sauce/paste/similar
  • about half a teaspoon of liquid smoke
  • salt and brown sugar to taste – it definitely needs salt, sugar though? Depends on you.

Heat the oil in a pan and gently fry the red onion till it’s soft but not browned. Throw everything else in, except the liquid smoke, and allow to come to the boil while stirring constantly. Simmer for about ten minutes, then either blend it till smooth in a food processor or use one of those stick things that you use for pureeing soup (they’re genius! So little washing up to do!) (my new flat has one, I’ve never used them before) (anyway) and pour it into a small jar/small jars or directly into a bowl to serve alongside/on top of your dinner.

(red and white twine to evoke The White Stripes)

This sauce is so delicious. And I’m not entirely a heathen, I didn’t go eating Tim’s birthday present, there was in fact enough to fill a jar for him and a small ramekin leftover for me. I intended to pour it over rice or something but I just ended up eating the lot with a spoon. The aggressive throat-pinching sourness of the vinegar and heat of the chilli sauce is mellowed by the sweet, sweet peaches, and the spices give it depth and, well, spice. And as I’ve already iterated at feverish length, liquid smoke is also good. It doesn’t make an awful lot but then at least you don’t have to stress about desperately pressing bottles of it onto visitors forevermore, and if it’s really not to your tastes then at least all you wasted was a couple of tablespoons of this and that. Conversely, if you really love it, the recipe is very easy to double or triple. Barbecue sauce for all! I always thought I hated barbecue sauce actually, but it just turns out that I dislike the particular overly sweet nothingness-paste that gets swirled onto certain takeaway pizzas, which tastes like neither barbecue nor sauce. And it certainly doesn’t taste like going on for paragraph after paragraph about sunshine on one’s shoulders, etc.

I’m flying up home this afternoon for the first time since Christmas, so that’s something. Am looking forward to seeing my family and the cats (the cats are family but you might not pick up on my implications unless I spell it out for you) and spending time knitting and reading.

Finally: It’s election time in New Zealand! Can’t wait for it to be over so that I don’t have to see billboards everywhere, but am looking forward to voting. It’s completely appalling that prisoners can’t vote, but hopefully my own small vote and my right to do it can help be a snowflake in an ever-rolling snowball of good change. Your politics are your own business, but what you do with them affects everyone, you know?

But also: you can now buy my cookbook directly from me! Which is exciting because ya girl remains flat broke, and unlike when it was sold in stores, every dollar from books sold through me goes straight to me. Yay though, right? My cookbook isn’t so easy to get hold of anymore so if you’re wanting a copy you better get moving as my stocks are limited…

title via: Britney Spears’ important song Brave New Girl. It’s easily one of my very favourite songs of hers, that kind of headrush-pop that fills my heart with glitter.

music lately:

Dum Dum Girls, Coming Down. Six minutes and thirty-two seconds of dreamy sad perfection.

Sarah Jaffe, Lover Girl. Was listening to my favourites Dark Dark Dark on Spotify and looked at related artists and was like, “Spotify, show me something new!” So I tried listening to this woman and I immediately loved every single song I listened to, starting with this.

Next time: seems like all I have in my pantry right now is pasta, which I’m happy about because I love pasta, so…yeah. We’ll see?

when we walked through little italy i saw my reflection come right off your face

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Ya girl is back. Or at least, ya girl is trying her best to be back. I’m still nowhere near being unpacked (my room somehow gets more embarrassingly messy the harder I try to clean? I dropped out of science early in high school but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in all academic teachings that could explain this phenomenon) but I’m cooking more and attempting to get back on the freelancing stallion and am generally determined to recapture my ambition. For something. I mean, I never lost my ambition of being outstanding in the field of excellence, I just lost my drive due to Extenuating Circumstances and if I’m being scrutinisingly harsh, which I don’t enjoy, I probably got a bit exhaustedly complacent in that position of, well, not even trying to try. I’m not sure I’m quite approaching my old burn-all-candles-at-all-ends level, but I am rewatching a lot of Parks and Recreation to re-absorb all of Leslie Knope’s power (“there’s nothing we can’t do if we work hard, never sleep, and shirk all other responsibilities”) and I am trying to write more and I am going to start doing my chocolate cookie dough pretzel thing deliveries again!

Because ya girl is also somewhat broke. Moving house and being too busy/tired to maintain several sources of incoming cash is an expensive pastime. But also I miss scooting around town and dropping off parcels of deliciousness, like some kind of no-strings-attached moderately profitable fairy godmother. So if you’re in the Wellington CBD region and want some of the good stuff for yourself or for your secret admiree, all the information you need is here.

As I said in my last post, I have started watching The Sopranos, and despite my immediate misgivings at the violence and boring wife-is-a-thankless-harpy outlawish-schlub-husband-is-horrible-and-also-the-beloved-hero tropes, it’s so compelling. And it makes me crave Italian food something fierce. Initially I wanted to make meatballs but mine tend to fall apart and I didn’t have it in me on this particular day to bounce back from that kind of failure, so instead I went for something very easy – pasta all’amatriciana. I was hoping that it would translate to something to do with matriarchy, but it gets its name from being a dish from the region of Amatrice. Which is nice in its own way – this is just pasta with bacon and tomatoes, but calling it by its proper name gives it a more official, elegant vibe, like, oh I’m just casually making myself this traditional recipe from a beautiful town in the Lazio region of Italy, how bout you?

It really is very simple though, and therein lies its charm – gloriously saucy enough to feel like you’re doing yourself a favour, fast enough to not be stressful, familiar enough to serve up to fusspots. I feel like I’ve had several bad versions of this in my time at cafes that weren’t trying very hard, but home made it’s highly glorious. Thick tomato sauce, salty-sweet bacon, barely-melting parmesan – all twirled around ribbons of thick, comforting pasta. (Well, I for one find pasta comforting, it’s probably my favourite food.)

I slightly adapted a recipe from the Scotto Family, whose book Italian Comfort Food I own and adore. Half a cup of olive oil may sound terrifying in these austere times, but it becomes part of the sauce, making it rich and deeply flavoured and delicious and more than otherwise just a can of tomatoes. However, I understand you using less. Olive oil is expensive. Their recipe called for bucatini pasta but I am a heathen and adore pappardelle, and it was on special at the supermarket – however if you can’t find it, my sneaky and ingenious trick is to get sheets of fresh lasagne and slice them into wide lengths. Or use whatever pasta you fancy.

pasta all’amatriciana  

adapted slightly from a recipe by the Scotto family, serves two (or one with leftovers for lunch the next day, aw yeah) 

half a cup olive oil (or less, whatever)
100g pancetta or streaky bacon, diced (I used bacon but pancetta is superior if you can get it)
one onion, diced
one can chopped tomatoes
150g pappardelle pasta (or other pasta)
parmesan cheese, grated

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta according to the packet instructions, or until preeetty tender. 

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a saucepan, and fry the bacon in it till crisp and sizzling. Remove the bacon and set aside – I just put it on the plate I served the pasta on – and tip the onions into the still-hot pan, stirring them and allowing to cook until softened, but not browned. Basically until that harsh onion taste has been cooked out. At this stage, tip in the tomatoes and stir over a high heat till the sauce is thickened somewhat – maybe ten minutes – then tip in the bacon and stir again for another five minutes or so. Drain the pasta and stir it into the sauce, still over a high heat, and then remove from the heat, add as much parmesan as your heart desires, and serve. 

I haven’t bought parmesan in forever, because every time I pass it in the supermarket I passively-aggressively sigh at myself like some kind of lazily-written thankless shrew wife in nearly any TV show and say “oh…no, no I shouldn’t, that’s expensive,” even though the price is never going to change and I could pay a lot more for something else and have a lot less fun. I really should’ve bought some sooner, a fresh grating of it makes so many pastas and risottos more wonderful, and a little bit goes a long way. As I said a lot when I learned the phrase false economy: that’s not false economy!

title from: PJ Harvey, My Good Fortune. I’ve loved this song since I first heard it in 2000, with its jangling chevron-like melody and satisfyingly ridiculous drawing out of words at the end of each refrain. And PJ Harvey is obviously a goddess. 
 
music lately
Beyonce’s performance of a medley of her entire self-titled album at the VMA awards. This is so important. I cried, I got the chills, I cried again. I’m getting chills just typing about it, thinking about her face when she sings Jealous or the sight of her standing in front of the word FEMINIST in enormous lit up letters or when Blue says “good job mommy”, I mean, just watch it.
Liane La Havas, Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye. This wistful, dreamy Leonard Cohen song is made even more dreamy by her voice.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Maps. Wait.
 
next time: idk! 

you may come full circle and be new here again

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So I’ve moved house! Last week was so weird. But it’s Monday now, and every Monday is like a little January 1, where you can start all over again. I have the day off work today and decided it would finally be the day I get my act together and buy some food and then cook that food for myself, for the first time in ages. My two options thus far for the last week or so have been buy food from cafes or takeaways, or sit in bed and contemplatively eat expired Golden Grahams cereal by the handful or a bag of twisties, scattering orange twistie dust everywhere (and here I’d like to apologise to my teddy bear, Avery, who looks like he has purchased a very bad fake tan.) The first option is not financially stable and the second option will probably have some weird effect on me eventually like dissolving my bones or giving me scurvy.

So, after eating some twisties in bed, I propelled myself towards the supermarket with the hopes that I’d inspire myself by the time I got there into knowing what it was I actually wanted to buy and make. I wanted something that could be done in one pan, so I wouldn’t make too much mess in the new kitchen. I also wanted something vaguely nutritious. I had grand intentions to buy a ton of fruit, but then remembered that winter is when fruit is all “nah, not in the mood to exist right now”, but potato and fennel are both present and cheap, and halloumi is the best way of making something half-assed feel celebratory and highly lux. And so, this salad appeared.

halloumi, fried potato, and raw fennel salad

a recipe by myself. Serves one, but it takes little rocket science to work out how to make it serve more.

one medium sized potato – I used a red one
half a large fennel bulb, or all of a small one
four thick slices of halloumi
olive oil
butter
juice of half a lemon

Dice the potato very finely – the smaller it is, the quicker it will cook. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a decent sized pan and wait for it to look sizzling, then throw in the potato and allow to cook till crisp, stirring occasionally. It’ll feel like it’s taking forever but the whole process really only takes about ten minutes – just make sure you let them sit till they’re plenty golden. Undercooked potato is no fun.

Finely slice the fennel and arrange half of it on a plate. Tip the potato on top of it, and then top with the rest of the fennel. Heat some butter (I used about 25g) in the same pan, and fry your halloumi slices till very golden brown on each side. Slide the halloumi onto the plate, scatter over some of those feathery green fennel fronds, because what else are you going to do with them, squeeze the lemon juice into the buttery pan and then spatula all that over the halloumi. 

I’d started watching The Sopranos last night – a show I hadn’t made any effort to seek out despite its general acclaim, on account of I don’t fool with violence and I also don’t need another TV show about a lawless white man who treats the significant woman in his life horribly and yet is received as the hero while she is the shrew, going through season after season of ultimately self-inflicted tension. However. I was with a group of people and the opportunity presented itself and I do have a very soft spot for the sadly late James Gandolfini. And wow, yeah, it’s a very well-made show, and I can see how it impressively influenced later HBO and HBO-style shows. But where I’m going with this is oh damn I wanted some meatballs or Bolognese or eggplant or pretty much anything aggressively Italian to eat after watching it. Alas, this salad is what happened instead. Luckily, this salad is hugely excellent in its own way.

Fried potatoes and buttery, melting halloumi are so good together it’s almost stupid, their textures both echoing and diverting from each other in a crunchily sybaritic fashion. The fennel itself also brings crunch of a different kind, not only stopping the entire thing from being burdonsomely rich, but also lifting the golden flavours of the halloumi with its faintly aniseed flavour. But then of course I pour over the melted butter from the pan, in case it’s not quite burdonsomely rich enough. The squeeze of lemon brings it all together, and with very little effort you have yourself a massively amazing lunch.

In lieu of a carefully staged photo of the dish sitting on a beautiful table, because there is none, here’s a photo of it on my lap on the couch, where I ate it. Four slices of halloumi is ideal – any fewer and you’d start to feel sad halfway through that the good times were nearly over, any more and you’d probably end up uncomfortably full but still doggedly determined to finish it because halloumi is halloumi. A scattering of sumac or mint leaves wouldn’t hurt this in the slightest, but for a hastily assembled meal it’s pretty great as is.

So, am slowly getting unpacked and used to my new world. My new bedroom has kind of got no natural light whatsoever, which is…something…but the people are nice and there’s unlimited internet and I love being so central, right in town, and I’m gonna eventually get there and have all my stuff where it should be.

Like this dress, back on the wall where she belongs (admittedly rather crumpled from the moving process, but like, same)

I feel like now that I’m no longer in this pre-move limbo zone I very much want to get my life together and cook heaps and write heaps and do heaps and really just be as super excellent as I can to continue propelling myself towards being lowkey ridiculously famous and adored by all.

If you ever do want to feel adored by all, by the way, my advice for you is: visit a dog. My darling friends Kim and Brendan spontaneously adopted a corgi who needed a home, and she is the most loving tiny dingus that ever lived. She’s like the hearts-for-eyes emoji existing in a corporeal form. I visited her on Friday, because she needs company and I needed dog hugs. As soon as I walked in she ran up to me and gazed up at me with such joy in her eyes, I actually felt my bones melt. And not just from eating all those twisties. I visited her again today for the same reason, and she was just the snuggliest thing ever, greeting me with a face that said “hi, you’re perfect and I love you indiscriminately and also everyone around you and everything around you!”

We get on well because we’re both fluffy and needy and have great eyeliner. 

Percy still has a lot to learn about taking selfies, but luckily Aunty Laura is here, and uncharactaristically patient.

So yeah, new house, new blog post, new hund friend! A lot of things in life are still very hard to deal with but I’m greeting the future with one hand in my pocket, and the other one is giving a peace sign (oh wait I started singing Alanis Morrisette there.)
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title from: Gil Scott-Heron’s contemplatively perfect song I’m New Here. The low rumble of the guitar and the low rumble of his voice, “told her I was hard to get to know and near impossible to forget”…so sad I’ll never get to see him live. 
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music lately:

Janine and the Mixtape, Hold Me. The anthem. 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, So Good At Being In Trouble. The…other anthem. 

Nicki Minaj, Jessie J and Ariana Grande, Bang Bang. This song goes OFF. I intend to dance to it many, many times. Am also just generally pro anything Nicki Minaj lays her hands on or says or does. 
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next time: Maybe some bolognese or meatballs or something, yeah?